Feeling held back by teammate & friend

LegacyUser

I have a fairly good job in large company which I'm happy at. Full time, permanent. Fairly standard job, just client queries, reports and such. Bit of scanning post too, general office work.

The bosses made me responsible for training. To get good feedback from people I trained meant a lot to me Every new hire I ever dealt with was a star imo. Train them up, help them along and they "got" it.


Myself and the latest new hire have been put on a brand new team, just 4 people and one of the goals I was given was to get him up to speed.

But this new guy, he's turning my hair grey!

- I told him several times to complete some tasks as it's better coming from me then the bosses, it never got done so I stayed late three times last week helping. Once until 7pm.
- He promised me he'd complete some tasks yesterday, never did any of them and I got the blame from the supervisors as I'm the experienced worker. I worked through my lunch when I saw we were behind but it was too late, we failed.
- An unwelcome habit of skipping difficult tasks and cherrypicking easy tasks from our queue.
- Never logs into his phone so the rest of us take all client calls. Which is ok as he's inexperienced but he won't learn if he won't even try.
- Never ever takes notes or when he does he'll back over to me asking the same questions he asked 2 hours ago.
- Blows up into childish rants when stressed. The rest of us just get on with the work.


Other team members tell him to cop the feck on. The supervisors send him realy strict emails about what's acceptable and what's expected. I never ever do this, if he messes up I feel responsible as it's my role to get him to where he needs to be. So I stay late going through what we discussed already.

What's more is he is my lunch buddy and probably my best friend in there. I knew him for another job years ago. We've gone on football trips to the UK, played tennis, pub sessions, things like that.

I'm not the perfect employee but I'm doing ok and the bosses said they were very happy with me. This is a brand new team and I'm almost feeling I'll just take over the workloads and he can do whatever the hell he likes, I'll be the one getting the work done and learning the new procedures and making contributions to the bosses.

Or is that unprofessional and petty?

Mrs OBumble

You need to talk to your boss about how s/he wants you to handle this situation. Bottom line they are the one being paid more than you are, because they have to deal with shyte like this.

Working with friends-from-way-back can often be tough, especially if they're not up to the job, or are just plan lazy (which is what this guy sounds like).

Also, you do need to think about whether you want him as a friend: he must be aware that he's letting you pick up the slack, but he's doing it anyway. Dunno about you, but that's not the way I treat my friends.

the_syco

wonderingaloud wrote: »

What's more is he is my lunch buddy and probably my best friend in there. I knew him for another job years ago. We've gone on football trips to the UK, played tennis, pub sessions, things like that.

First off, it sounds like he knows he can get away with being a ****, as you're "besties". The f**ker will drag you down with him, and when you're both sacked, he'll probably hop skip into the sunset, and leave you in the rubbish bin. Sounds like he's taking full advantage of your friendship, in the worst possible way.

wonderingaloud wrote: »

- I told him several times to complete some tasks as it's better coming from me then the bosses, it never got done so I stayed late three times last week helping. Once until 7pm.
- He promised me he'd complete some tasks yesterday, never did any of them and I got the blame from the supervisors as I'm the experienced worker. I worked through my lunch when I saw we were behind but it was too late, we failed.
- An unwelcome habit of skipping difficult tasks and cherrypicking easy tasks from our queue.
- Never logs into his phone so the rest of us take all client calls. Which is ok as he's inexperienced but he won't learn if he won't even try.
- Never ever takes notes or when he does he'll back over to me asking the same questions he asked 2 hours ago.
- Blows up into childish rants when stressed. The rest of us just get on with the work.


Other team members tell him to cop the feck on. The supervisors send him realy strict emails about what's acceptable and what's expected.

Part of been a good trainer, is been able to train well, but also recognize bad apples, which this person is very much so. I've bolded the parts that stick out for me, especially the last part, as it sounds like he has problems doing his f**king job :mad:

Whilst us Irish often envy the "sly ho'oer" in the job that evades work, you'll soon hate the slacker when you're in charge of him, and you get the complaints about his work.

jr22

Totally agree with the two posts above. Life's too short to be worrying about accommodating someone who clearly doesn't give a sh!te about the impact he's having on you.

In the past I would probably have tried to find some roundabout way of managing a situation like this, but there's really nothing better than getting this off your chest. It'll all come out eventually anyway, some way or another, and it'll do you no good to bottle it up.

Have an honest chat with your friend, tell him what he needs to improve and don't shy away from telling him that he's behaving like a knob. Have a list of issues and recent examples of where he's been going wrong. Talk to your supervisor and come up with some sort of ultimatum for this guy if things don't improve drastically. Lay it on the line for him. If you're not friends with him afterwards, you really haven't lost much.

tatli_lokma

Agree with the other posters. You need to have it out with him and not shy away from this. One good thing is you are not technically his supervisor, so you don't need to worry about the kid gloves approach as much as if you were. You are his mate, and as his mate I would be telling him straight out that he is p!ssing you off.

Also, perhaps devise a strict training schedule - as in you will know x,y,z by such and such a date, and I will expect you to be able to do these things alone by then.

Make it very clear and then head to the manager, tell him what you have devised, why it is needed. Then point out that once you have done your very best to train this person under this schedule, if they are not up to it by then, they never will be. I assume this guy is still on probation, so if he doesn't meet the grade, then he'll be on the dole queue. You have a good track record up to now, don't let him drag you down. Your employer already knows you are a good trainer from past feedback, so don't be afraid to remind him/her of this and be confident in your own abilities.

Best of luck!